MUTARE, ZIMBABWE — Ronald seems a sober, respectable, church-on-Sunday type. Not the kind you'd find prospecting for diamonds here in Zimbabwe's wild east, a world of swaggering foreigners, dirty money and shoot-to-kill police. Not the sort who'd utter movie-script lines like this one: "You can make $15,000 or $20,000 in 30 minutes. But you can die within seconds."
Ronald, like the rest of Zimbabwe, has caught Africa's nastiest ailment -- diamond fever.
Sleepy towns such as Mutare have blinked awake to find their quiet streets buzzing with opportunists and black marketeers. Every day, illicit miners show up at the hospital with gaping bullet wounds and flimsy excuses for how they got them. Characters straight out of "Blood Diamond" cruise like sharks.
But the biggest sharks are nowhere to be seen: Officials of President Robert Mugabe's regime are looting the diamonds, industry sources and members of Zimbabwe's security services say.
Not only are they personally enriching themselves with one of the few natural resources still left in this ruined country, party fat cats may be finding life support in the diamond riches, Western diplomats and analysts fear, and gaining one more motive to cling to power.
"I think the political implications are very interesting," said a diplomat based in Harare, the capital. "Right now, the government's getting very little. If it can regularize this in some way, it could really prop things up for a while. It could give them some time to pursue their interests and just keep going."
The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid political problems with Zimbabwe's government. Others who were willing to discuss the diamond trade declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.
Industry and security sources say government leaders have their own syndicates to dig and trade diamonds on the black market.
"The diamond game is the filthiest game in town and everyone's into it," says one source familiar with the gem industry. "It's not even semi- organized chaos. It's a bunch of thieves who backstab each other.
"A lot of leaders of the political regime are involved in trading. They have their own diggers and traders. But it's all to their personal account. They've all got a vested interest in chaos."
Regime cracks down
Diplomats, industry sources and some nongovernmental agencies believe the Marange field here could be one of the most significant diamond discoveries in decades.
